Bant, You Got It Goin’ On

Bant goodstuff has long been a “good, not great” deck in Modern. Its core problem is it lacks the proactiveness and catch-all (almost) quality of Lightning Bolt and Thoughtseize, so you’re left with a more straightforward, reactive deck that relies on Path to Exile (which has its own problems at times), and counterspells (which compete with your creatures) for disruption.

However, goodstuff can never be strictly bad regardless of what colours you’re in, and it has some unique things going for it — one more now with the addition of Command. Here are the three cards that only really fit into Bant, and provide compelling reasons to at least try the deck out:

Bant Charm is extremely relevant in this format. It’s the kind of card many decks would love to play if it was in their colours, but it hasn’t been, so it’s neglected. The first mode hurts Affinity, the second hurts any creature deck (and makes Wurmcoil Engine sad), and the third shuts down opposing disruption. Sound good? Oh yes.

Rhox War Monk may appear underwhelming, but look closer and realize he has 4 toughness, which dodges Bolt and lets him profitably block all kinds of creatures in the format. On top of that, lifelink is fantastic in a meta where 1/5 of the top 10 decks are aggro and cannot get rid of this thing (usually, at least).

Ojutai’s Command brings back any of our slew of goodstuff creatures for added resilience (including Snapcaster Mage should the game go long, and it will fairly often), gains us life versus aggro, hurts them when trying to mount an offense or defense, and gives us some late game draw power. Great stuff.

The Brew

Onto it, then. Below is the pre-testing list I’ve come up with. By pre-testing I mean that of course it’s not been tested yet (although I have goldfished it with overall decent results), and as such is somewhat rough and subject to potentially lots of tweaking, especially given the open nature of goodstuff decks.

For those that can’t afford Goyfs or just don’t want to pay that much for cardboard, you can use Voice of Resurgence instead. The sideboard is far from well thought out, but I’ve started with much worse before.

In terms of competitiveness, I believe the list is still “good, not great”, but with some testing and fine tuning (which I’ll try to get to eventually), it could be closer to great. I’ve done my best to minimize the inherent problems with Bant and maximize its inherent strengths, but there’s definitely still work to do.

Parting Thoughts

You can go in a lot of different directions with this list: you can cut the non-creature spells for more creatures like Voice and add in Collected Company, you can throw in Mana Leak for additional control, you can add extra reach with Elspeth, Knight-Errant and/or Sword of Feast and Famine (which makes Birds less bad, among other things), and so on — the possibilities are extensive.

In the meantime, may this list provide you with a fun shell with which to abuse Ojutai’s Command, or inspire you to your own Bant list.

25 thoughts on “Brewing Bant with Ojutai’s Command”

I feel like kitchen finks is better than war monk the vast majority of the time. It’s better when facing down decay/path/sweeper/liliana, and while its worse vs bolt you still get 4 life and a 2/1 which is acceptable. Even with a gavony out, sure the monk gains more via lifelink – but finks gains actual extra lives with each +1+1 counter. The only feather in war monks cap is that he doesn’t lean on the graveyard – so if you’re facing ooze/relic/RiP on your goyf/scooze/snapcaster monk bypasses the hate. What does your deck fear more – gy hate or path/decay/liliana?

With ojutai’s command I feel like you want at least one qasali pridemage in the main – being able to 5 mana blow up an artifact or enchantment (and draw a card) seems like a pretty relevant move vs a lot of good decks and pridemage is never dead. I’m also pretty confidant 4 ojutai’s commands is too many

As you said, bant’s biggest issue has always been interacting favourably with the opponent. If you lean on the UW control cards like leak/remand/cryptic/path you have to ask what green is giving you – if you’re playing green/white hatebears or aggro type cards you have to ask what blue is giving you.

Bant charm was much better tech when pod was around since it stopped pod and took out their value creatures like finks/voice.

One idea I had was to go all-in on the shroud/hexproof creatures that green and blue both seem to get plenty of and essentially make this deck something like a “bigger Bogles”, which punishes people for spamming 1-for-1s. It’s a bit half-baked, but maybe it’s worth a shot…?

Clever idea, but yeah I think it’d just be a worse Bogles probably. The advantages would be more consistency (Bogles suffers from a lack of creatures which leads to bad mulls), and more versatility, but I’m skeptical those things outweigh what you’re losing to get them.

A little bit input from someone who tried to make Bant work. There are several things:

1) A big problem with Bant is it’s Mana curve. You have no real 1 drop (Noble is the best one here) , and also no good 2 drop (Tarmogoyf is btw horrible in that deck, trust me, you just can’t make him big, so you have to rely on the opp which can backfire horrible (I learned this the hard way)). The only good cards you can play in the 2 CMC slot is Scavenging Ooze, Pridemage (you don’t want to run the whole set here through) and Voice of Resurgence. I never tested Voice through (was to expensive and I began to play a different deck). BUT the 3 CMC cards are just insane. From Finks and Warmonk to Geist and Blade Splicer and in the end you still miss the best creature for this deck Knight of the Reliquary.

What happens is: You have no early game (Turn 1-2), but you have like 12 or more 3 drops (you need/want Bant Charm as additional Removal).

2) General Creatures and Planeswalker:
You “can’t” play Midrange Bant without Knight of the Reliquary. This cards is “our” Goyf, heck since DRS got banned it is the biggest creature in the format with one of the best abilities too. Bant is in general pretty heavy on 3 CMC spells, so you need ramp in form of Birds or Noble Hierarch (you can also play land based ramp, but they are worse), which are pretty dead in the lategame since you have no card like Lilliana to discard those “dead” draws to. But again, here shines Knight, since he can find your Township. Also he can find you the one of Bog, or the Ghost Quarter/Tec Edge you need against opp man lands. He is just insane in Midrange Bant. Just to give you a little insight. When I untaped with Knight I normally won around 80% of the matches (and yeah, I counted them), he is just THAT insane.

About Geist of Saint Traft. He is kinda iffy in Bant, since Bant can’t clear the way for him (you don’t want to use your only Removal (Path) on a random card (Ambush Viper, aka Snapcaster, or stuff like this). So you have to give him Evasion. The best card for this is by far Elspeth, Knight Errant. She is just insane (and arguably on of the best PW out there). Also she is pretty amazing against BGx, since she can’t die against Decay and make blockers for Goyf and co (Siege Rhino is pretty annoying, same with Lingering Soul (she may be not that awesome now, but like back than when I played the deck, she was just insane)). So, if you want to play Geist, you have to think a little bit ahead, since otherwise he is just a Psionic Blast 😛

3) Spells
Now it gets interesting. Path is obvious a 4 off, but you need Removal. Dromoka’s Command looks promising for this, but it requires the “biggest” creature on the board. So I don’t know how good this card actual is. And in the end you want to run between 2 and 3 Bant Charms since they are just insane. Another good cards is Valorous Stance, since it acts as a Removal spell against BGx and it can protect your own threats (but there is still Path).

Now there is Ojutai’s Command. The biggest problems with this card are: It is only an Essence Scatter and not a Counterspell (mode), where the biggest problem makers for Bant comes from non Creature cards, the first mode is more than cute, nothing else (as I said, Goyf isn’t good in this deck) and the other 2 modes are ok. You can argue about running 1-2 just for value, but even than I wouldn’t play it.

Summary:
Bant has a big CMC curve and removal problem. The first one can be solved, the second one sadly not (at least now, maybe they will print another good W removal spell). If you want a fair Midrange deck which is a Tier 2 deck (in my opinion) go with it. It makes ton of fun (especially if you attack with a huge Knight and the opp has to chump with stuff like Goyf just so that he doesn’t die). Also you can play awesome utility lands and you normally have access to them (again, Knight says hello).

Also, a big point is, there are not many players which play Bant (since it isn’t well known that there is actually a good deck). Hence, there isn’t that much of a development which hurts the deck. There may be an awesome version out there which can easily be Tier 1.5 but nobody found it yet. Furthermore, many people laugh about the idea from a Bant deck, since they think this specific colour combination is a joke.

Greetings,
Kathal

PS: Rox War Monk is better than Finks in that deck (at least when I played that deck). He looks kinda cute, but when you have him on the battlefield you notice how good he is.

PPS: If you want to run a Vial Control deck, look at Eternal Ruse. It abuses Vial, Eternal Witness and Familar’s Ruse for a soft lock. The core is UG, if you go into W you get Wall of Omens, Resto Angel and Path, R offers Lightning Bolt and Knuckleblade. It is an awesome deck which can destroy nearly every Midrange deck, but is kinda weak to fast aggro decks (especially if you go into W).

I have tested coiling oracle and wall of omens in bant blink. Neither is good, but oracle is terrible. The body is just completely irrelevant at all points in the game and the UG casting cost can strain your early mana either by costing life or bungling your turn 3/4 curve.

At least wall of omens is a cinch to cast and blocks goblin guides and wild nacatls. But I’d still rather be mana leaking turn 2 against most decks than casting this – i.e. affinity, twin, and BGx.

I really want mystic snake to work as part of a UWg flash control deck, but as I said drawing a fistful of snakes and angels is terrible vs anything quick. I wish snake had been UUG 1/1 so it could curve into angel 🙁

I’ve been trying Sulimgar’s Sorcerer in the Mystic Snake slot. It can eat Wall of Omens or itself the second time around after a Restoration Angel. Deck still lacks the punch to go toe to toe with tier one decks in the format tho.

Thanks for going through the effort of generating a starter bant list.

Unfortunately, it looks like Bant’s been left behind in the good stuff category when compared to:
Lingering Souls
Abrupt Decay
Siege Rhino
Tsagur

Blue’s loss of good counterspells and good cantrips cannot reliably compete with black’s versatile disruption and power-creeped threats.
Tho
That said, what if this deck’s goal was to go long, and aim for lots of value creatures while holding up reactive mana.

A card like the above mentioned: “Dismiss the Weak – UG Instant
Counter target spell with CMC 3 or less”

Would do some work in making these colors viable among the current meta.

Uses durdly 2 drop creatures to out card advantage the midrange decks, while threatening to win the late game off of Gavony Township. Supreme Verdict is hard to play around for your opponent. You can recover off of Return to the Ranks, which brings back threats and cantrip creatures/answers (Snapcaster, Qasali).

Path to Exile is the best removal spell in the deck.
Bant Charm imitates in, while occasionally being a counterspell in the Twin matchup.
Main deck life gain would be nice, but hard to fit in.
Ojutai’s Command is improved by the ability to recur Snapcaster into Path while cycling/countering (I guess gaining life if you HAVE to)
NobleHierarch takes advantage of all the 4 drops.
Cantrips help the deck stay proactive while developing manabase and finding more answers/threats.

So…..long answer, but it’s a differnet idea for Bant.
Otherwise, bant just looks bad to be honest. No support from wizards unless you want to be the Hexproof aggro deck with swords/enchantments. Lots of fun planeswalkers too, but combo decks in modern make sure you wont be having any kind of fun like that, only disruption and cheap aggression.

feel like mana dorks and counters are bad together, imho, and of course the lack of a good removal is bad, in fact the top tier decks in modern play decay with black or bolt with red, the only tier ug is infect but he doesn’t really need all that removal, at least g1. So, if u don’t get to play the best removal of the format (or u have a good tempo deck with an instant combo win) u can’t really play tempo.

I love bant and have been trying to make Bant brews work for a while. My constant brewing has lead me to this list that I am playing now. This decks gains a bit of speed and resilience against straight GW hatebears in exchange for leonin arbiter and a higher top-end. Also faster than merila-finks combo.

I used to build bant as a tempo shell, but I found it plays more consistently as a hatebears shell. Rhox war monk is much better than finks in matchups you want him, like burn and affinity. Sometimes you just get free wins with t1 noble t2 mindcensor. Overall I found this build gets there most reliably. Really feeling like Collected Company is a better card than Ojutai’s Command.

I’ve played against a deck or two like this but they were more Flash-centric, playing only spells on my turn. The cards that stuck out to me as the opponent of the Bant deck were Advent of the Wurm and mystic snake. Also the lack of goyf. He said he only had instants and creatures so goyf was less good.

Current metagame: 12/1 – 12/31

NOTE: Metagame % is calculated from the unweighted average of all MTGO leagues, paper T8s/T16s, and GP/PT/Open Day 2s in the date range. Data is tracked in the Top Decks page, which you can browse for more details.